Reflected
by lachlanrose
Summary: Logan turns up unexpectedly at Marie's apartment one cold December night. Marie makes a confession. Logan makes a move. W/R
1. Broken Wings

**Title:** Reflected  
**Author:** lachlanrose  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, but nobody owns the Wolverine, bub.  
**Feedback: **Yes, please! The good. The bad. The ugly, welcome….  
**Summary:** Logan turns up unexpectedly at Marie's apartment one cold December night. Marie makes a confession. Logan makes a move. W/R  
**Author's notes:** After finishing Run, I was in the mood for something a little bit lighter. Or, you know, at least a little shorter! This one's got a bit of an edgier Marie than we're used to seeing. She's not perfect. She's got flaws and insecurities and she's made some questionable choices. I thought it would be fun to write a Marie that sailed a little closer to the wind than usual, and to see what Logan might make of a girl who wasn't quite as innocent as he first imagined…. A huge thank you to doctorg for the beta. You're every kind of awesome! Oh, and one last word of thanks to Ms. Fox for the line of borrowed lyrics. _This one is seriously adult, folks._ (Duh, it's me! Heh.) **You have been warned.**

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**Reflected **

Here's a real truth for you. My name is Marie, and I am the original copycat. Nothing so pathetic as words or ideas. Oh no. I am talking about the real McCoy. Art. Forgery. Now I work restoring old paintings when I'm not zipping myself into the leather and saving the world. But that wasn't always the case. You see, I have this... gift. No, not that kind of gift, though I have that kind, too.

The other one is sort of like how some autistic children can hear a song and reproduce it note for note on a piano without ever so much as taking a single music lesson. Quite by accident, I discovered I can do the same thing with paint and paintings. Sadly (and somewhat unfairly, I've gotta say) I have absolutely zero original creative talent whatsoever. Give me a blank canvas with instructions to paint a flower from my imagination and what will result will no doubt resemble a deformed hamburger... but put a Picasso or a Monet in front of me... and a very different thing happens.

It was a joke at first. I went to college to study language, of all things. (That's another story in itself. Let's just say I tend to pick them up in an unusual way and leave it at that.) To make ends meet, I took a job working slave labor for this gorgeous jerk of an Art History professor. Quite by accident, he discovered my artistic gift (okay, he got drunk at a gallery opening and I took him home to my apartment to sleep it off. He saw a copy I'd done of a van Gogh hanging over my grungy sofa when he stumbled out the next morning).

The following afternoon he asked about it. He didn't believe for one minute that it was my work... so like the cocky young idiot that I was, I told him to pick one; to pick any painting at the Museum of Modern Art... He chose Degas' _Ballet Rehearsal _that was there on exhibit.

He picked one but didn't know what I had up my sleeve, and I didn't enlighten him (he really was an ass!). I think he thought I'd stolen it when I waltzed in his office a few weeks later with the copy I'd done under my arm. To make a long story short... that was the last time I had to carry his coffee or pick up his suits from the cleaners. From then on, he just paid me for various works... two or three hundred or so for the smaller ones... up to five or six for the bigger ones.

What did I care? It paid the rent and gave me a nice enough chunk of change to go out drinking with my friends from time to time. And all the while, he taught me about art. Well, specifically how to get every last detail so perfect it could fool anyone. What canvas to use. What method of preparation. What paint to use. What tools. Even how to cut the canvas with a blade rather than scissors.

I never thought anything of it. He spun me some story about how he was just trying to fool his colleagues. I think I sort of knew at the end there that something wasn't quite above board about it all... but nothing really solid until the scandal broke, of course. He'd been selling them to auction houses around the world for thousands of dollars a crack. Fucking cheapskate! He only ever gave me a pittance. I nearly died when all the details came out. One sold for nearly twenty thousand dollars to a private collector. At auction it brought almost double that amount. I was partly thrilled and partly horrified. And then I was only horrified and terrified when they brought me in for questioning, assuming I was in on his scam.

Which is all just a roundabout way to explain why I am stateside and why almost everyone else on the team is with Charles in Switzerland right now for the first worldwide symposium on mutant relations. They all decided to stay on for an early winter holiday skiing trip. I stayed home. I was never formally charged. My teacher had nearly every penny he'd made squirreled away in a hidden offshore account, proving my desperate claims that I had never once benefited from his illegal sales.

I was never so thankful to be broke in my life. But I did have to sign formal documents saying I would never again sell a forged painting and I had to surrender my passport for an indefinite period of time. I think they thought I'd just go somewhere where nobody had ever heard of me and make a killing selling forgeries. Sadly, they weren't half wrong. The thought had crossed my mind, but without a passport... Well, you get the idea.

My case comes up for review every few years. And with this latest fiasco with Munch's _Scream_ being stolen... well, let's just say negative attention to the art world doesn't exactly do me any favors, you know? Denied again. Never mind living a grand life somewhere. I can't even manage a Christmas holiday with friends.

So that is how I found myself wallowing in a bit of self pity that December evening. And to be honest, I really could have used a trip to Zermatt. Hello? Girl who hitched to Alaska? I like the snow. And it would have taken my mind off a certain someone, you know? Instead, I was rambling around my apartment talking to my cat and indulging in my other guilty pleasure. No, not chocolate. Horrifically cheesy 80's music. Rock me, Amadeus!

Just in case that isn't painting the right picture in your minds, let me just indulge you. If the image of a curvy brunette with a gap in her teeth and features too big for her face singing Manic Monday to her cat isn't bad enough, picture her wearing socks, skimpy panties and a man's heavy winter shirt. Serviceable blue flannel... that smells of _him_.

You know who I mean.

He left it one night at the bar we sometimes go to after missions. I stole it on my way home. So there. Confession, huh? I hear it's good for the soul. While I'm getting that off my chest, I might as well confess the rest. I took the Lord's name in vain (several times) this week when I found a red sock had turned my whites pink. I stuck my tongue out at a little boy on the subway who made an ugly face at me when his mama wasn't looking. At Wal-Mart I slung my finger at the clerk's back when the old dinosaur gave me the fisheye for buying batteries on a Friday night. They were for the damned remote! Everyone's a critic these days.

Oh, yes! And my worst sin (other than stealing Logan's shirt)... while digging through my junk drawer looking for some batteries for the remote, I found one of those little chocolate Easter eggs covered in foil. It's December so you can work out for yourself how old that was. Didn't matter to me. In an effort to be more kickass and less curvy and squishy, I haven't tasted chocolate in months. Like it was long for the world? I won't admit I searched the back of the drawer hoping for another.

No luck.

Picture it. Mr. Mister wailing away in the background. Me in Logan's shirt and those stupid pink socks savoring a bit of stale chocolate. _Take these broken wings..._ Okay, I'll spare you singing... but clearly you can appreciate the patheticness of my evening. Melancholy. Hungry. Sexually frustrated. Shaking it Marie-style and singing into the remote. I told you it wasn't pretty. I was about half a glass of wine away from attempting to dye the streaks in my hair when there was a knock at my door.

Thinking it was Bobby and John coming over on another of their Friday night 'Save Marie From Herself' crusades, I barely gave the peephole in the door a glance before I jerked it open. I can't tell you who was more shocked, me or Logan. I think I just blinked and stared. Maybe it was all the blood rushing from my brain to my face that made me stand there like a goalie who's taken one too many slapshots to the head. Like if I knew it was Logan on the other side of the door I'd have opened it wearing—

And then it hit me exactly what I was wearing. I think it's pretty safe to say my face went from red to please-kill-me-now in less time than it took for his eyes to flick down and then back up. Hey, just because I'm not used to having men look in my direction doesn't mean I don't recognize it when I see it. How many times have I seen that look of his aimed at some hot little barfly? The way he looked at me wasn't rude. Just the casual flick of a man's eyes...

Eyes that were seeing me dressed in _his_ shirt. I was surprised the embarrassment didn't kill me. Death was sounding like a pretty good option just then. Except for one little detail. If I keeled over, I'd never get to know why he was standing there outside my door on this cold winter night.

The embarrassed silence stretched out endlessly. It was my cat who broke the stalemate. He's one of those mentally unhinged cats that lives in the back of closets or under the furniture and you hardly ever see him unless he's attempting escape. I shrieked. Houdini ran. Logan made a valiant attempt and caught up the little furball by the scruff and then all hell broke loose as Houdini wriggled free and went completely mental, viciously attacking the back of Logan's hand with a ungodly yowl.

Total time elapsed? About half a second. The door of my apartment was closed. Houdini was back under the couch. And Logan was staring at me as he put his mouth on the back of his hand and licked at the stinging scratches that were bleeding profusely. I felt my knees quiver.

In the background I heard Samantha Fox moan out: _This is the night... touch me... touch me... I want to feeeeel your body... your heartbeat next to mine... touch me... touch meeee... now..._ When she moaned again his eyes flicked from me back toward the stereo and I jumped to snap it off. Great. So now I'm a perv as well as the owner of a demented feline.

Just. Freaking. Perfect.

"I'm so sorry!" His eyes darted back to mine. I started babbling. "Houdini. That's his name. I can't remember if I ever told you that. He's a stray I took in. They were going to put him down cos nobody wanted him. I couldn't bear it." Logan's eyebrows went up. "One of God's creatures, you know?" I finished lamely.

He took his mouth off his hand and there was a playful smirk on his lips. "You sure he's one of _God's_ creatures?"

I laughed and thought about making another excuse for Houdini but then this demonic hissing growl came from under the sofa. I looked back at Logan and that's when I realized there was a significant trickle of blood running down his hand.

"Your poor hand!" He caught the drip in his other palm before it could ruin the cream carpet and gave a little shrug. He'd healed by now, of course, but there was still a lot of blood. I was certain he'd never forget his first trip to my apartment. God.

"S'nothin'." He looked from the red droplet splattered in his hand to my face and then he ducked his head. He seemed a little embarrassed to have been bleeding like a stuck pig from such a small scratch.

I was mortified and insisted he come to the kitchen so I could clean him up. He reacted the way pretty much every man I know would have. Told me not to bother even while settling himself at my small kitchen table and giving over his hand. I adore the way men like to be fussed over like a child on their mama's knee. There's just something endearing about it. And it's been my experience the harder the man is, the more he appreciates that touch of softness.

Logan was no different.

Only it was impossible to think of him as a boy. I was very aware of his presence. Or maybe we were aware of each other. His eyes, on the few occasions they left the floor, kept going to my bare legs. Easing off his leather jacket and his denim one too, I wet a cloth and slowly began wiping at the blood. It was the first time I'd touched his skin since I got control of my powers. And it was electric. His palm was weathered and rough against mine. I could smell him; a warm musky scent under the crisp smell of the night that clung to his hair and clothes. I could feel the heat radiating from his big body. His long legs were stretched out lazily. The silence stretched out again too, awkward and heavy.

I tried to keep my breathing even so it wasn't so obvious I was half way to orgasm just from touching his beautiful hands as I busied myself wiping at the blood. Even after my enthusiastic wiping, he had bit left on his wrist and a smear in his palm. There was a small smear on his bottom lip as well. I froze, my hand half extended to his mouth. What I really wanted to do was lick it away. To taste it. To taste him. The metallic flavor of his virility. The smoky tang of the bourbon on his breath. The heady taste of Logan on his tongue. I shuddered.

"You- You have... on your lip..." God. Why did it have to be his _mouth_? His tongue came out to flick at it and I felt a dizzying rush of heat that left me lightheaded. My mouth watered. So did my body, a wet rush between my legs. He jerked visibly in the chair. I jumped away and busied myself in the kitchen before I did something really stupid. Like throw myself at him.

The clack of the kettle on the stove sounded like a gunshot in the thick silence. I jumped. He didn't. "So... er..." Brilliant, Marie. Just brilliant. Really witty conversation, there. He just looked up. Slowly. I swallowed hard. "Do you... uh... need anything, sugar?"

"No." His cheeks colored slightly. "M'fine." He flexed his fingers. "All healed." He was rubbing the cloth between his long fingers in a way that was making it hard to think. I could have kicked myself. I hadn't meant his hand. As embarrassing as that was, I knew he was fine physically. I'd meant his presence in my apartment tonight.

Why else would he be here?

All I could think of was that maybe he needed to call someone in Zermatt and was hoping one of them had left the hotel number with me in case there was an emergency. Actually, Jubes had. But she'd also posted the hotel number on the bulletin board in the rec-room at the school. With a note that said:_ If the place burns down, don't bother calling. Save my shoes!_

I attempted to cover my nervousness by getting out two mugs and box of teabags. It didn't help that I could still feel myself tingling where his skin had touched mine. "I'm sorry Houdini scratched you, but I meant-" I gestured helplessly at the door. "Was there something you wanted tonight, sugar?"

His head came straight up. My cheeks flamed. Oh, God! Why do I always find a way to put my foot in my mouth? Very smooth, girl. Logan shifted uneasily in the chair. Embarrassment? Guilt? I couldn't tell. I don't suppose it matters much. Not now, anyway. He never did answer me. The shrill whistle of the kettle interrupted another awkward silence. Not quite saved by the bell, but close enough for me. I rushed to snatch it off the stove before the sharp sound inflicted even more damage to a man with sensitive hearing. We exchanged a few more words. Tea? Milk? Sugar? Cookies?

And then we were back to staring at each other, this time over steaming mugs of fragrant spicy tea that neither of us actually touched.

"Why didn't ya go with the others, kid?" His soft voice startled me. So did his question.

"Why didn't you?" Answering a question with a question. My mama would have clucked her tongue at me. Only Logan didn't say anything. That's where a guilty conscience will get you every time. It's those who feel that uncomfortable weight pressing on them that are always first to fill the silent void with words.

So I told him. Hey, if you can't trust your savior with your secrets... Only I wasn't thinking of him as my hero just then. Or maybe I was. I'm honest enough with myself to admit that was part of the attraction. I think part of it was also some sense of kindred spirits... only I wasn't really thinking of that until after I stopped talking and he just sat there, looking at me with those clear unwavering eyes.

"So they took your passport. The end?" I nodded. He smiled. More silence. And damn him if I didn't start talking again. Admitting quite a bit more to him than I did to earlier. Admitted that I knew I was dabbling. That I liked the excitement of it. The thrill. His eyes flickered when I said something about nobody ever suspecting a girl who looked like me but then I was off, talking about the rush of being a wild girl. Doing something I knew I shouldn't.

"When was this?"

"My sophomore year of college." He'd been gone for seven months when the shit hit the fan. Sixteen months later when he finally returned, it had all blown over. Charles had hushed most of it up. It pays to have friends in high places, though he didn't help me at all when it came to my punishment and my passport issues. He did not approve of the choices I'd made. Fair enough. I didn't like some of his, either.

Logan pushed a hand through his hair and cocked his head. Watching me. Working it out. "How long was it before ya did it again?"

My heart was beating very fast. For a moment, I'd forgotten who I was talking to. This man had a past. A dark one. And of them all, none of them knew more about the powerful, addictive rush of doing something bad. I didn't even hesitate. "Fourteen months. Sold a Matisse overseas. Made a killing. I sent the money to Mama so she could finally get out from under Daddy's thumb. She told everyone she got an inheritance from a distant relative." I grinned. "It's not like I could use it with them watching my accounts. Besides, I don't really need it, you know? Everything I want is right here."

Again with the foot in mouth. God, what was wrong with me tonight?

There was a glimmer of something I couldn't quite work out in his eyes. "That right?"

I could only nod, not trusting what the hell I might say next.

Silence had filled the kitchen again. For a brief moment we'd connected intimately - feeling the kinship of shared illicit behavior, the shunning of authority that seemed to come naturally to us both.

When the glow faded, I felt more like myself than ever. A stupid silly girl who was forever reaching for the stars and wanting something she would never have. Too bad I'd never figured out how to paste a smile on my face and pretend everything was sunshine and roses when it wasn't. Maybe I just needed to accept the fact that there was no star for me.

I won't lie. It was a bit hard to do with Logan sitting in my kitchen close enough for me to smell his skin, and all the while that damned song tripped over and over in my head_. _

_This is the night...This is the night. This is the time we've got to get it right. Touch me. Touch me... _

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Up next: **Touch Me**. Things heat up in the kitchen and then all hell breaks loose…


	2. Touch Me

**Touch Me**

Logan moved for the first time since he'd sat down and I felt him brush a single fingertip over the cuff I'd pulled down to hide the nervous fidgeting of my hands.

"I usedta have a shirt like that..." The low rasp of his voice made me shiver; the kind that makes your nipples hard and gives you goosebumps on your legs and settles straight down into the pit of your stomach. This time neither of us looked at the floor.

I swallowed hard. Part of me wanted to apologize for stealing it. Part of me wanted to him to understand why I did. Now or never, Marie. "Well, actually, it is yours." My breath caught, wondering how that would go over.

Something on the very edge of controlled flickered in his hazel eyes.

"Well, if ya give it back to me... then I just might give this back to you."

He leaned back in that casual way men have when they're sitting and need to dig something from their pocket. He pushed his hand inside and shifted his hips a little, drawing my attention to the sizable mound between his legs. And God, that _buckle_. My mouth watered. The denim was distended slightly, enough for me to see two buttons of his fly straining to contain the bulge behind them. My head spun.

From his pocket, he withdrew a crumple of sheer green fabric shot through with iridescent threads. My scarf! He didn't seem embarrassed at all the way I had been. Instead, he held it out to me. The silk had retained his body heat, nestled so close to the pit of his groin. Almost without thinking I closed my eyes and rubbed it against my cheek.

"It's warm," I whispered.

His breathing deepened and I could tell he was bringing in my scent. "S'even hotter there now."

I half expected to open my eyes and find myself staring at my bedroom ceiling; all of this just another figment of my overactive imagination. Instead it was the soft intake of a man's breath and the squeal of a wooden chair leg on a kitchen floor that jolted me back into the moment.

I opened my eyes. All he said was, "Smelled like you."

I think I said, "Am I dreaming?" I know I thought it. But if he had my scarf all this time and turned up here tonight... and here we were, breathing hard and staring at each other across a table... I did what any girl would do; stood, flicked the three buttons open, dropped the shirt and handed it back to him. There were so many butterflies in my stomach that I even forgot to suck it in.

For a moment, time seemed to be stuck. Hung up, like a tape caught somewhere. And then there was a whirring in my head and everything seemed spool forward in an explosion of sound and movement. The screech of a chair. The clatter of a salt shaker falling over and rolling off the edge of the table. My breathy gasp. The crash of his heavy boot kicking a chair out of his way. The muffled thump of my body being pressed hard against a wall. A heady, wild kiss. Wet. Deep. Explosive. The light switch dug into my back. His mouth was so hot. I forgot to breathe. Pulling at his clothes. Kissing and groping against the wall in the kitchen. Knocking things off shelves. Cookbooks rained down. A bowl of fruit overturned. The other chair got knocked over as we dragged each other out.

We left a trail of clothes across my apartment. My pink socks dropped haphazardly where he fell to his knees and pulled them off, licking my hip and then twisting me to suck and bite at the back of my thigh. I knocked a lamp over jerking his shirt off. He managed to toe off one boot but fell back into the couch where I straddled his thighs and pulled off the other. He bit my neck and rubbed his thick fingers into my hair. His belt landed over the radiator. I think Houdini took one of his socks. Not sure where the other landed. Not sure I care.

My knees quivered when he held my panties to his face and inhaled before stuffing them into his pocket with a wicked leer and slow grind against my naked backside. He ripped open his fly and pushed. I pulled. We fell through the door of my room. The chaise we landed on creaked under us but held. I felt confused. Overwhelmed. I didn't know what I wanted to do first. Touch. Taste. Feel. Smell. Kiss. Grab. Lick. Bite. Swallow. Whimper. I wanted him inside me. I wanted it to last forever.

Yes. No. Hurry. Slow down. More. A thousand conflicting things were tugging me in every direction, pulling me further and further into the eddies of something all-consuming. Was this love? Lust? Desire? Need? I felt lost. Suddenly hesitant where I'd been tearing at his clothes only moments before. I could feel the thick length of his naked cock throbbing between us. He was rocking his hips slightly as we kissed, rubbing it against my belly and sighing into my mouth.

I clutched at him. "Help me, sugar..." I was desperate. "I want..." That got his attention, but I didn't know what I wanted. That was the problem.

He held me tighter. "We got enough time for all of it, kid." His warm tongue traced a wet path down my neck. I could feel the heat of his breath against my throat. "Just breathe me with, darlin'. Close your eyes, beautiful girl."

"God!"

I shuddered as he sucked my nipple into the warm cavern of his mouth and fought to match the rhythm of my breathing to his. His was slower. Deeper and more sonorous. He spoke against my skin, kissing my lips and my eyelids. The lightest touch. "Tell me whatcha see..." He was right. There was an image behind my closed eyes. I just had to slow my racing mind down enough to see it clearly. "Tell me whatcha want..."

Inside my head was a shockingly graphic image. Me between his legs, drinking down his orgasm while he shuddered between my lips. I whispered that to him and he groaned.

"That's... What... You... See...?" He was holding my arms above my head, speaking between kisses as he started at my elbow and kissed his way into the sensitive hollow of my armpit and then rubbed his hairy cheek against my breast. I squirmed.

I nodded. "What do you see?"

His chin lifted and I saw his eyes flash gold. "I don't needta close my eyes to see what I want." He swept a pointed gaze down my body. I fought the urge to cover the parts of myself that I don't like. He frowned and dragged my hand away from my curves. "Don't." He kissed my palm and then flicked his tongue into my navel. "I wanna see." He knelt up over me, jerking himself slowly. "Look what it does to me, darlin'..."

He was hard and throbbing, skin stretched tight with the rushing of his virile blood. A clear droplet oozed out and fell on my belly. He kept stroking. Another appeared. This one collected at the tip, growing larger and heavier until it hung suspended on a glistening silvery thread. My mouth watered. It was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen. I almost came when he told me to open my mouth and fed it to me. Just one drop. I swirled my tongue over his finger and when I sucked it, his whole body shuddered. He shifted and spread his thighs wide. I slipped down off the edge of the chaise.

And for as frantic and wild as we'd been ripping at each other's clothes, what happened then was the other end of the pendulum. Slow. Deliberately erotic. The softest fluttering kiss on his tip. Rubbing my lips together to feel the slick glide of it. The way his breath caught when I opened my mouth. I will never forget that moment when I first felt the heft of him on my tongue. How the pungent flavor of him filled my senses when I sucked down and he wept into my mouth. Or how he rolled his hips and shivered as I gave him head. Slowly. So very slowly. Or the sound he made deep in his throat when he realized what I was doing to him was making me come.

It tore through me like... I don't even know what. Strong and good and more than a little out of control.

He watched. Not directly, though. He was staring at the image of us reflected in the large full length mirror. I saw him squeeze down hard and pull gently on his scrotum to keep from coming along with me. I liked looking at him, but seeing myself... that just made me uncomfortable.

The mirror is here because I don't like what I see when I look into it. Standing naked in front of it motivates me not to eat when I'm hungry. It works. I'm down nearly twenty pounds from where I was at the end of my year in Italy after college, but I'm still not thin. My breasts will never be small. There is a fullness around my hips. My backside is toned these days but still round. And my belly still jiggles a little when I laugh really hard.

It's funny how I like to be a voyeur with everyone but myself. I turned my face away and tried to shift so I wasn't in the reflection any longer. A strong, unmovable masculine arm stopped me.

He didn't ask me why I'd done it. I think he'd worked it out. Which was more than I can say for any other lover I'd ever had, not that there'd been that many. Bobby. Remy. And Marcello, who I'd met the summer I spent in Positano... but my mistake was in assuming once he'd figured it out, that he would just let it go. He didn't. Already a very visual man by nature, once he'd gotten wind of my hang ups, it only seemed to make him more determined to make me watch us both.

First he kissed me... and then he drew me to my feet and kissed me again until I was trembling in his arms. And then he turned me and moved to stand behind me, whispering into my ear for me to watch. I saw a man put his mouth on a woman's shoulder. I saw her nipples get hard when he pinched them. I felt the trickle between my legs and saw how they pressed tightly together in response. It was embarrassing on one level to see what he was doing and to realize he could see it too.

But it was also thrilling.

I've never made a big secret of the fact that I get off on watching... for a lot of years that was all I thought I'd ever have... but this time it was me and him. Not watching someone else. Not listening to others. I was watching _us_. Feeling how turned on my body made him and seeing how shameless he was about showing it. It was something of a revelation. And it was scary. And exciting.

And we both watched it all.

Two pairs of eyes stayed riveted to the glass as he weighed my full breasts in his hands and pinched and rolled my nipples until I moaned and slumped back against him for support. He touched me everywhere and rubbed his beautiful cock against me... especially where I'm soft. My belly. My thighs and bottom.

My face was red. So was his cock. When he touched me, it would jump and pulse. When he guided my hands up and told me to touch myself it began to weep again, dripping slowly. Sometimes on my legs. Sometimes on the floor. Sometimes I would catch the droplets and smear them on his skin before licking them away.

He wasn't embarrassed to touch me anywhere. In fact, he seemed to especially like the places that gave me the most anxiety. He would dig his hands into my soft flesh, pulling, unafraid to use his strength to grab a handful and he would say, "This is what a man wantsta feel..." His hands went to my breasts. "And this..." He slapped my butt with an open hand so it made a loud noise and the soft flesh quivered under his palm. "And this..." He rubbed between my legs from the back. "And this..."

His soft husky whisper became a low rumble of pleasure as he lifted my leg up and rested my foot on the chaise, baring me so we could both see my naked sex, pink and exposed under the soft brown curls. He groaned at the sight and bit softly at my neck as we both watched him stimulate me. Touching gently at first and then more lewdly, opening me up to him. Grunting as he pushed a finger inside. Rubbing against my backside with a rough push of his hips when I squeezed around his fingers.

I couldn't stop looking at the dog tag in the center of his chest. The one I'd had made for him the Christmas after he'd told me he regretted flinging away the only tangible piece of his past he'd ever had. I fingered it. He fingered me. Excitement glittered in his eyes as he watched the reaction he drew from me; a flush moved down my skin. He followed it with his gaze. And then with wet glistening fingers. He pushed them back inside and breathed into my ear, "Touch yourself for me, darlin'... lemme see..."

A tremor juddered his big frame against mine as he slipped his fingers out and watched mine slip in. "Oh, God..."

"So soft... so sweet... you're beautiful, baby. Feel what a man wants to feel..." He rocked against me and pushed his wet fingers into my mouth. "Taste what a man wants to taste..." His fingers went deep. So did mine. And all the while he was whispering to me what he was going to do next and how exciting it was for him to hold me while I came on my own fingers.

He put his tongue in my ear and then with this dirty rumble told me where he was going to put it next. And how he was going to do it so I could see.

And then he did.

Knelt behind me and bent me over the chaise. Rubbing his stubbly cheek on my creamy skin and nipped and licked and kissed from the small of my back down and down. My cheeks. My lips. My wet opening. Kissed hard there, holding my hips tight and pushed his tongue deep inside. "Like a man wantsta do with his cock," he said when he knelt up. His chin was glistening and wet. He rubbed against me again, sighing at the soft skin and then pushed a slicked finger back inside me. I'm not sure what was better. The feel of it or watching the way his heavy lidded eyes darkened as he groaned in pleasure at the crude sight of his fingers penetrating me.

It was too much. One hard shove from him and the chaise scooted to the perfect position for us both to see. "Do I needta use somethin'?" he panted. I shook my head. Thank God for the shot. "Good. I want us to feel it all. I don't want anythin' between us, darlin'. Gimme your hand." He guided one of my hands down and used his other to hold himself steady as he pushed in. That was too much for me. Feeling it with my body and my fingers. Seeing it in the mirror. Hearing his deep grunt. I cried out but he didn't stop the steady inward push. It hurt. He was big and it had been so long. Years.

I felt his fingers stroke over where we were joined. "So pretty..." And then I felt his hands grip my hips hard, rubbing all over my belly, back to my bottom and around again to my hips as he rocked in as deep as he could go. In the mirror I saw the dark heavy body of a man draped over the pale naked skin of a woman's back. "Watch," he said, rolling his hips. I gasped. "Watch us."

I did.

Watching the instinctive movement of his hips was as erotic as feeling him hit that place inside that makes women see stars. The arch on the withdrawal. The play of the muscles in his back, slick with sweat at the apex of his movement. The bunching of his muscles when he pushed back in. How each shuddering thrust transferred to my skin. Made it bounce and quiver as his body thudded into mine and made a rude satisfying slapping sound when it met my pink, shivering skin.

His face nuzzled mine, kissing me as we watched ourselves make love. And for the first time, I liked what I saw. The way we moved together seemed beautiful. Soft and hard and in and out and jiggly and tight seemed to marry up perfectly. Divinely, you could say.

"Do you see?" He grunted softly in my ear. When I nodded, he kissed me. "That's what I see when I close my eyes, darlin'." I felt tears come. I felt an orgasm coming too. He pulled away and turned me over, pushing himself back inside smoothly. "Now, let _me _watch..." he touched my face. It was a different intimacy than watching in the mirror. More personal. More intrusive. "Give me what I've dreamed of for so long, baby..." He was struggling to master himself. "Lemme see it..."

He dropped his head and thrust hard until he felt me begin to flutter and then lifted his chin to watch my face. I felt his muscles quiver and his body surged between my legs. He was deep in me. So deep. I cried his name. He leaned even more weight into me, prolonging my pleasure. And his. I throbbed around his girth, shuddering in ecstasy.

When it was over he just whispered the same two soft words I'd whispered to him at the very beginning of all this. "Help me..." He gasped and held himself, squeezing his cock hard in his fist when I slipped away, unable to bear not having any stimulation, even for a moment.

"Time enough for all things..." I slipped down. "Give me what I've dreamed of too..."

He cursed softly at the erotic image of me on my knees before him. This time it wasn't slow. He was too aroused to be gentle. He rubbed his wet tip on my lips and thrust his hips at me, unable to articulate his need in anything but rough jerky breathing and his hands tight in my hair. His mouth was open. His eyes were glassy but he was watching. Between my lips he hardened impossibly, swelling against my tongue. I felt him in the back of my throat. My eyes watered but I didn't stop him. I wanted this. To drink his orgasm. To swallow his pleasure. To have all of him.

With a helpless sigh, he leaned back and gave into the pleasure, pouring down my throat. His body juddered and stiffened and then slowly went slack. We stayed connected that way a long time. Until he softened between my lips. Until we got chilled and sleepy. I gave his soft penis one last gentle suck and let him pull me up into his strong arms.

He didn't say thank you. He didn't whisper words of love. He said, "I never did answer your question about why I stayed." Tucking a flyaway curl behind my ear, he tenderly touched my face. "I stayed 'cause you did, darlin'."

Pushing his hair back from his face, I smiled at his handsome face and then flicked off the light. "Feel like staying a little longer, sugar?"

His soft chuckle was drowned out by the squeak of my bed as we climbed in. "Sure do, kid."

Now, I'm much too cynical to change my whole outlook based on a single night. I'm still not sure there's a star out there for me. But I do reckon every now and then, a girl gets to have her chocolate.

And eat it too.

* * *

**Author's note**: Just a short little story this time around. I hope you enjoyed it. My muses sure did! lol I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one and I'm taking suggestions for where y'all might like to see things go from here. :) I've already written one addition to this story. I'll be slapping my usual mature themes warning on it (I'm sure you're all surprised. Heh.) and I'm going to aim to post it later on this week.

Up next: **Designs  
**The sequel to Reflected. Heat…. spice… and a test of endurance. W/R


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